Creating the Award Winning Design - last day

We worked HARD on Saturday - 8:00 am until 11:00 pm!  We were starting to feel a little worn out by Sunday.  But - while we all still had a lot of work to do, it seemed doable (is that a word?).

I had another challenge come up with my crystal buttons.  My design had the crystal buttons attached elsewhere and again, I couldn't get them tight enough.  So we came up with the idea of propping up the buttons with a small "yo yo" of fabric behind it.  They look like sparkly flowers to me.

Crystal button with yo yo

The yo yos worked well, so I made them for all the other places where the crystal buttons were attached.  They are all hand stitched.

All my little yo yos, waiting to be attached to their crystal buttons.

Yo yos and crystal buttons on lower section of panels

Closeup of buttons and yo yos on lower section of panel

My treatment includes a checkerboard cornice with padded silk strips of fabric weaving the checkerboard.  It is embellished with crystal nailheads.

Checkerboard cornice with crystal nailheads

Closeup of cornice with crystal nailheads

After all the treatments were complete, we packaged everything up to be shipped to Vegas.

All packed up, ready to go

We were all proud of a job well done!

From left:  Monique Becker (Becker Window Fashions), me, Debra Martin (Debra Martin Designs), Elizabeth Gerdes (A Stitch Above), Liz Hawkes (Windows by Liz), Sheri Stouffer (Finishing Touches), Sue Fresconi, and Terri Booser (CHF)

...but we were a little tired!

The International Window Covering Exposition opens today and all the CHF Alumni Showcase designs will be unveiled there.  If all goes as planned, I will have another post later today LIVE from the Expo!  Thank you for reading.

314.324.5972   lois@ryliemax.com









Creating the award winning design - Day 2

We worked on our designs for 12 hours on Friday - 8:00 am until 8:00 pm.  I will admit - the day before I was supposed to travel to CHF, I was wondering what on earth I had been thinking when I entered the contest?  I did NOT have time for a trip!  But by the end of the first day, I was in my element and was SO glad I was fortunate enough to be there.  And already thinking of ideas for my contest entry for next year.

Sue Fresconi, Elizabeth Gerdes, me, and Monique Becker arriving at CHF on Saturday morning

On the second day, we weren't quite as bright eyed but still excited to work more on our treatments.  Not suprisingly, some of us had things about our treatments that were not turning out the way we had expected.  And yes, I was one of those people.

My treatment, as it was originally designed, had a contrasting leading edge on a drapery panel with crystal buttons along this edge.  However, when I started to fabricate it, I couldn't get the buttons attached as tightly as I had envisioned, and they were pointing down.  We brainstormed and came up with the solution to put a gathered contrast band on top of the original contrast band to support the crystal buttons.

Me, Terri Booser (CHF) and Ann Johnson (Author and CHF Instructor) working on my treatment. 

Cheri Mulhare captured the actual brainstorming taking place in this photo!  Can you see the gray matter churning?

I liked this look even better than what I had orinally designed, because the crystal buttons were much more visible against the blue silk than they would have been against the silver.

Blue silk panels with double contrasting lead edge, embellished with crystal buttons

The other change we made to my treatment was to construct them using the english method of fabrication.  This involves constructing the panel by hand sewing.  This method of fabrication is for high end treatments; by doing this, you don't see any stitching on the front of the panel.  It's a beautiful effect.  Obviously this took more time to accomplish, but not to fear!  The industry rock stars were there, ready to help.

Susan Woodcock, Drapery Rock Star, hand sewing my panel

Now seriously....where else but at the CHF Alumni Showcase Weekend would I find Susan Woodcock handsewing my treatment for me?!  That was way cool!

I did help though....I didn't make Susan do ALL of my hand sewing. :)

Threading the needle

Hand pleating the contrasting leading edge band

Stay tuned for my next post tomorrow detailing our last day at CHF...and then for the BIG REVEAL later live from IWCE in Las Vegas on Tuesday!

314.324.5972   lois@ryliemax.com